Various accessory bicycle racks have been developed U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,394,948; 4,513,897; 4,452,385; 4,830250; 4,452,385; 4,085,874; 4,182,467 and 3,710,999 are examples of prior art patents on bicycle racks. All of these patents have at least two support frames with each support frame made up of two legs. The structure disclosed in the '385 patent has front and rear legs in a fixed relationship, whereas the other patents mentioned above have some range of angular adjustment between the legs to accommodate different shaped trunks or rear extremities of the vehicles.
The '897 and '948 patents show carriers which have forward legs affixed to side plates. Rear legs which engage the rearmost portion of the vehicle have a range of angular adjustment provided by slots in the plates and rivets in the legs which move in the slots.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,830,250 discloses the use of two U-shaped support frames and two support arms all of which are rotatably supported from a common axis and all of which can be adjusted at the same time when the locking nuts are loose. Although the carrier disclosed in the '250 patent provides a compact folded package, it is difficult to manipulate both the legs and the support arms because all parts are loose at the same time. The legs are not locked in a fixed relationship when adjusting the angle of the support arms to horizontal and the legs can easily slip from the adjusted position.
Various of these patents, such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,394,948 and 4,452,385, use a row of apertures and threaded fasteners to adjust the relative positions of the swing arms.
Generally these bicycle rack patents show hooks, at the ends of straps, for attaching the racks to vehicles. Each of these hooks, though, is of a singular design, those hooks being sewn to the ends of the straps preventing use of a different design if necessary. There is demand for additional flexibility in hook design to accommodate differences in the vehicles to which the racks are attached.
This invention relates to improvements to the bicycle carriers set forth above and to solutions to some of the problems raised or not solved thereby.